These Shia militias presently going into Iraq’s Sunni-majority Anbar province to fight Islamic State (Daesh, ISIS) are doubtlessly the lesser evil in this horrible war. That ought to go without saying. If you want a very crude and highly imperfect analogy, they are the Soviets in the Second World War against a group which is in many ways uncannily like the Nazi regime – and this is coming from someone who is careful that he doesn’t lazily compare modern day groups or states to Nazi Germany.

Indeed one was reminded of the Eastern Front in the Second World War quite a bit over the course of this war against Daesh. One has in the past compared Daesh’s various activities (such as rape, slavery and ethnic cleansing) to that of the particularly nasty Einsatzgruppen – those Germans who would round-up Jews and other so-called “undesirables” when they conquered Soviet territory throughout the course of Adolf Hitler’s manic attempt to either enslave or exterminate the Slavic peoples and annex their vast territory into his self-styled thousand-year Reich. The way Daesh shoot people into mass-graves is uncannily reminiscent of the manner in which the Einsatzgruppen carried out its grisly systematic mass-murder campaigns. Just like what Daesh has been doing to minority communities, continues to do and will continue to do unless they are stopped through force of arms. Have no doubt about it.

These Shia militias are certainly not the ideal force to stop them. But they are the most competent force to do so given the circumstances. The failure of the Iraqi Army to even defend Ramadi this month nearly a year after its infamous dash from Mosul make this clear. While one had long hoped that Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi could effectively mount a counter-offensive into Anbar using the Iraqi Army (which is predominantly Shi’ite due to the demographics of Iraq but is by no means a sectarian fighting force of the kind these militias are) in coordination with the Sunni tribesmen of Anbar that prospect seems even more distant today, unfortunately. The Iraqi Army had a year to get its act together but has instead incurred additional losses of Iraqi territory to Daesh and few noteworthy successes against that group.

Abadi probably hoped to guide the militias into battle with some Iraqi Army units waving the flag of Iraq to give them the veneer of being, or at least being under the command-and-control of, the regular Iraqi armed forces. However it appears these Shia militias will be doing most of the fighting and a great deal of the dying which may prove necessary in order to drive Daesh from that huge Iraqi province.

Don’t forget the Sunni tribesmen called on them to come and retake Ramadi, clearly recognizing that they are the only effective force against Daesh in Iraq (bar, of course, the Peshmerga paramilitary in Iraqi Kurdistan), and are working with them regardless of whatever other differences/disagreements they may have. A strong ground force whose fighters go into battle without retreating against Daesh is what is needed. These militias are that force regardless of whatever you might think about them. They may flaunt their yellow and green Hezbollah flags (yes militias Washington and others find horribly unsavoury, such as the Badr Organization and Kitaeb Hezbollah, are/will be taking the lead in the fight against Daesh in Anbar), they may loudly chant sectarian slogans and display sectarian symbols but they are capable of getting this arduous job done. The job the Iraqi Army has failed to do and which the United States and/or its coalition allies either cannot, or will not, do at this point in time.

Obviously there was plenty of acrimony over Shia militant fighting forces going into Anbar. But one should remember it’s not in the interest of the Shia majority in Iraq or Iran to alienate the Sunni minority. Remember when the former Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki was sidelining the Sunni minority in the political process it was Muqtada al-Sadr of all people who denounced him, obviously recognizing that it wasn’t in Iraq or Shia Iraqis interests. Indeed the instability fraught during the Sunni protests and riots throughout the 2012-14 period gave Daesh the perfect opportunity to exploit underlying sectarian tensions in Iraq in order to seize the territory it presently holds.

Defeating Daesh and then helping these tribesmen get back on their feet so they can defend themselves more effectively (Anbar may get some form of greater autonomy and control over its domestic affairs after Daesh is purged from its land) would be the best end to this horrific nightmare. Granted one may well be unrealistically optimistic to hope for such an outcome. But alas one does.

That, and many other possible outcomes to come from a Shia offensive in Anbar, are surely much much better than the status quo of a stalemate. A status quo whereby Daesh continues to retain hold over Nineveh and Anbar in Iraq as well as half of neighbouring Syria. I was alarmed to hear some expressing concern over how the entrance of Shia militias into Anbar will affect Iraq’s stability. After all a stalemate whereby Daesh can continue to hold onto Anbar and Nineveh isn’t “stability” by any stretch of the imagination. It’s more destruction, terror, torture, rape, mass-murder and slavery for large parts of Iraq and many hapless Iraqis. That has to be stopped as soon as possible. And if these Shia militia forces are the only ones who can do this so be it. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

In Iraq demographics were always against Daesh. It would be almost impossible for them now to overrun Iraq’s Shiite heartland, or even Iraqi (as well as Syrian) Kurdistan. It was said that when the mighty 4,000,000-man German invasion force rolled into the Soviet Union in 1941 it resembles a giant elephant crushing millions of ants. It may well have been able to stomp millions of those ants to death but was eventually overwhelmed by their sheer superiority of numbers and consequently eaten to the bone. Same analogy applies to Daesh in Iraq today.

Let’s just hope that during the course of uprooting Daesh from Anbar (and then Nineveh and the vast metropolis of Mosul) sectarian atrocities against the Sunni inhabitants are kept at an all time low and these militias help the Sunni Arabs of Anbar (many of whom are as much of victims to Daesh’s atrocities as the Yazidi’s or Christians elsewhere) get back on their feet and start anew as soon as possible. That way Daesh will not only have failed in breaking Iraq, but it will have made it stronger.

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